What is it with Discogs sellers? Post your horror stories here...

A sweeping generalization.

Some Discogs sellers - myself included - are selling only records from their own collection that they have carefully looked after since buying them new. A visual inspection is all that’s needed.

 

At some point, I had 2 jobs while still raising my toddler son and had a new dog to train. Interesting that you think 1h is no big deal to lose on a full day.

You assume a lot of things, including that it's laziness.

You know what I'd like to do with my time? Spend it learning and playing more Chopin, learn a new language or 2, and take up woodworking. Realistically, none of this is possible. If I were retired with no kid at home, things might be different.

 

Obviously. I don't know all of the sellers on discogs....
I am speaking out of my experience mostly about high volume sellers and I am speaking namely of valuable records.
If it's their job,when they ask collectors' price, I demand top service.

Agree . I did the same when I sold records. Still I felt the right to listen to the most valuable ones -> 50€+.
I think I can assume that we (and most of this board) are clearly not part of the problem (over graded items flooding the market).
Now, out of curiosity, what if I was about to buy something off from you, that cost say around 95$ and asked you if you play graded it, and if not if you were willing to?
Would it seem unreasonable to you?

It can be a big deal indeed.
But If you are demanding say 50€ per record... on a full day you are more or less asking for 400€ worth of records (8 records).
It might be a big deal also for those who are buying them...

I don't and I am not honestly interested when I lay my money on your table.

I just know that if you sold me an NM record that turns out to be clearly over graded (I am not speaking about nuances here) you shouldn't feel the right to shrug it off with 'Hey sorry pal, I did not listen to it".

Same question to you:
What if I was about to buy something off from you, that cost say around 95$ and asked you if you play graded it, and if not if you were willing to?
Would it seem unreasonable to you?

Note: All of this is being said by someone who accepts an EX copy when buying NM. I know perfection does not exist.

 

A lot less sellers or sellers selling fewer items at a time isn't a bad thing. Sellers choice don't sell hundreds at a time. My choice I no longer buy unless it is NM and was play tested as such.

Hey my analogy is perfectly appropriate the used car lot down the street is selling a Porsche 911 for $50,000. Never drove it. Heck have not even started it or turned engine over. They just did a visual inspection and the interior is very clean.

If visual grading is norm then I'll look for non-normal sellers. But I disagree - how a record was graded should be required.

 

That's your choice, seller. IMHO it's part of your job as a seller to play grade. Or else state it is visual only in your ad and let buyer make choice.

 

No. Not at all unreasonable.

However, I’d have to tell them that I can’t play it, as I no longer have a turntable.

But that, if they buy it from me and it’s not in the condition they expected, they could return it to me for a full refund.

 

I honestly am puzzled by this reasoning. You're equating this to a job which it isn't and the analogy doesn't hold; at all! I'm just a guy selling records I don't listen to anymore. If a record is $50, it's $50. I'm not asking anything more than that and any additional fees are purely imaginary on your part. It's not "like" anything; that's the price. Up to the individual to decide to purchase.

If someone is selling hundreds of records and holds a job, you honestly believe that play-grading every record over an arbitrary amount that *you* chose makes sense or is realistic? It isn't. Whether that makes irritates you is irrelevant; that's life and you can't argue away life's circumstances such as time, a luxury many of us unfortunately do not have. The only reason I'm able to respond to your post is because of a slight lull in my workload. That's just... life.

I take it you don't sell records?

If I sell hundreds of 2000-page books, you think I'll have the time to look at each individual page of every single book carefully and thoroughly? No; it just is unrealistic, period. Your standards are fine and I share them; it's your expectations as to how far you believe the seller should or will go that are wholly unrealistic.

If a buyer has an issue with the record, he can return it on his dime and I'll refund the money (unless he played frisbee with it). Never in my years of selling records have I ever had anyone dissatisfied. It may or may not eventually happen but if it does (and mistakes or oversights can happen), the purchased item(s) can be returned for a refund, no problem. Hell, it isn't even my decision; that's PayPal's buyer protection at work. I stand by what I sell but even if a seller doesn't, he won't have a choice but to refund the buyer anyway.

I've had sellers agree to do so and others who admitted not having the time. Since I don't know what their circumstances are, I'm not comfortable with calling them lazy. You're free to make any rationalizations or judgments you wish but you don't know the situation and jumping to conclusions is a bad look.

Meanwhile, PayPal offers 6 or 8 returns where they foot the bill for the return shipping fees up to (I believe) $30 each time so if I judge that it's worth burning one of those, I might spring for it and cross my fingers.

I don't believe in EX. A record is either NM or VG+.

As a sidenote, play-grading means far less to me than you might believe. The reason is simple; knowledge & experience. Most sellers won't necessarily have carts of the caliber I own and my microline diamond will retrieve far more detail (and imperfections) from the grooves than someone's elliptical stylus which will be far more forgiving and provide an inaccurate picture (way off!) of how it'll sound on my end.

As long as the record isn't on my turntable, it doesn't matter how it looked or sounded on the buyer's end. I've returned more records which were play-graded as being NM than I'd like due to this. Most sellers won't bother play-grading records, much less have a conversation about the gear that the record was played on. I can see where they're coming from as a I had an experience with one person who wanted to trade a dozen messages about it and in the end, I told him he can buy it or move on. Never heard from him again; pure tire kicker. Fortunately, that's only happened once.

It's an imperfect medium and people are also imperfect. Logic needs to be applied. For instance, I saw a seller whose stock was about 2000 records and it didn't matter if a record was 50 years old or 5 months old; everything was marked as NM without exception, all with the same vague description of "Plays great!" which could mean anything. That told me the records are not seriously examined and it was the default rating for convenience. I have no doubt whatsoever that if I had ordered a handful, I would've been dissatisfied with several of them. Needless to say, I didn't bother.

The biggest struggle I have as a buyer is getting the correct pressing. I *need* to ask every single seller to verify the runout/matrix info and at least 1/3 of the time, I'll get a response that says "Oops! Looks like it's under the wrong pressing." On one hand, I can understand the lack of time in categorizing hundreds/thousands of LPs and it's my experience that most people who buy records don't care about this sort of thing (which is odd), but since the purpose of Discogs was always to separate albums by pressings, that is why I use it and it can be quite frustrating to get yet another "Oops!" message when wanting to confirm what they have. A surprising amount of sellers on eBay or Discogs are unfamiliar with what runout/matrix info even is and I have to guide them to get the answer.

Most sellers aren't like a lot of people on this forum who care about stuff like pressings. That's the reality.

 

I'm sure they miss you very much.

 

Personally, when I buy a record off of someone that I don't know has a good setup, I DON'T want them to play it.
"Hey, could you play that 2014 mono Pepper on your Crosley for me before I buy it?"

 

You can demand it if you want, but it's still unrealistic even at your 40 €/$/£ level.

If someone has a few, sure and they probably play graded it simply through the fact that they played it for themselves before eventually deciding to sell. But expecting every seller to do that is pointless. It's never going to happen. You walk into a store, there's thousands of records and you expect every record over that price to be play graded? You are living in a fantasy world.

 

I can get more on eBay and have. CDs that had no traction on Discogs moved far quicker, and at the price I wanted, on eBay for me.

I've tracked prices on eBay and they often out pace some titles on Discogs. There's no set rule IMO. Every time I think there's a pattern emerging, there's something that throws it off. A bidding war can really drive up prices.

 

Again, unrealistic. Someone has a business, they have inventory, it needs to move. You expect them to whittle down their choice to almost no records so they can be play graded? Same goes for hobby sellers that have many items to move.

Of course it's your choice to buy off of those that you are comfortable with. There's also nothing wrong with wanting a record to be play graded. I'd like that too. But, it's unrealistic to think all sellers will or can do that. You can't expect a store to have play graded every record.

 

Only request is for sellers to clearly state how they grade. Many do on eBay. Few do on Discogs. If I know you only graded car based on looking at interior and never drove it, I can choose to not buy from you.

 

I’m seeing a lot more “horror story” buyers in this thread than any stories of nightmare sellers.

Someone selling a record doesn’t owe you squat. You don’t like it, don’t buy it. You might miss out on some really good stuff.

I’m more inclined to think these folks having massive amounts of issues when there are no visible flaws more than likely have issues on their end. Or unreasonable expectations.

 

I see some serious antisocial personality disorders in this thread. Why I no longer sell records.

 

Then I would not buy from you. I might miss out on a good item, now that I know that you are a member of this forum and your visual assessment surely has some value for me.But in a normal situation, where I do not know where you stand I would surely avoid the risk.

I beg to differ.

A record's worth depends on its conditions. You are assessing the condition by the look while the buyer will do most likely by listening to it.
Don't you find something very peculiar in this?
I do.

I can concede is not fully realistic. It makes fully sense though.

So you , the seller, hasn't got any time to waste in assessing a record worth a hundred dollars plus shipping.
I, the buyer, need to have plenty of free time to go back and forth to the postal office and pay upfront shipment for your mistakes.

On a side note:
I understand that most of the times I would not have any problem in buying from you or the vast majority of people frequenting this board.
And truth be told, I also share a most of your considerations including the ones regarding play grading not granting that the record will play in my system the way it played on the seller's one! that's so obvious.
Like it's obvious you can't assess a record from a picture.

Still, if I see the pictures I can assess how the seller grades the cover. If he over graded the cover, I won't trust their grading of the record either.
If he told me he played it, I can realistically expect a better record than one that wasn't played.
I asked 3 times to play grade a record. In all occasions they conceded that they over graded it.
Chance?
Might be .It's not big numbers. Still... makes me think.

At the end of the day I am just pointing out that
- ok mistakes can happen
- ok nothing is perfect (I don't buy NM expecting real NM. I buy NM just because if the record is really bad there's really little to dispute given what the official grading says)

But it seems to me that most of the market is now made of collectibles (at least items I have been looking for) but most sellers game hasn't upped accordingly.
It should make a difference if I am paying 5 or 100€ for a record.

That's all.

 

My Seller Rating and comments - and those of others like me - should give you a pretty good idea of where I stand.

 

A record graded NM having so much surface noise that the vocals were unintelligible tells me that even visually it had to be graded wrong. No way a NM-looking record has that much surface noise. Even poorly pressed records don’t have surface noise to that extreme.

 

I do think it'd be difficult noticing some albums that have been on crappy players. If the needle digs all the way through, how is one to know it sounds bad? It just looks like deep groove. It's like that for many 45 collectors. I've come across plenty of jukebox 45s that looked great but the hit side sounds terrible (or they were played on Winnie the Pooh palyers).

 

This. A thousand times, this. If you are unsure or unclear for whatever reason what the pressing is, don't list it. I find it so frustrating. You are bang-on with your last sentence - that's why people are haphazard when it comes to pressings. They don't care a huge amount and assume no one else does, either. Or they think "close enough" and assume no one will notice if it's not right, or even worse, they will notice but not care much either.

I think many sellers find the correct year and then pick the first pressing from that year that is on the matching label and country, and there you go - that's the "pressing." It completely escapes them that almost always, there are multiple pressings of an album from a label/country in the same year, particularly a good-selling album. Sometimes there's a dozen or more. Sometimes the runouts are almost identical, or they actually are identical so you have to check other clues.

I've reached the point where my tactic is to be polite, but I ask them to double check because I "have several pressings of this album from this year/country, and don't want to end up with a duplicate." Sometimes this is true, and sometimes it isn't. But either way, it makes the seller realize right away that the pressing needs to be right because it's clear I'm going to notice. Again, I'm polite about it and don't act like an jerk, but the point is effectively made.

 

What I like to do is nag sellers to play their hundred dollar records. I also make sure I know the exact turntable they are using, the exact cart, styli, and how many hours are on it. I also have them send me a list of all records they put on before they put on the one I want to buy. If any of those records had some feelable marks, I need to know. Then I make sure I know the exact setup of their speakers and where they were sitting listening contently to the record I inquired about. Are there any rugs in the room? Windows? What kind of paint is on the walls? If they say no to me, I quarrel with them about how they shouldn't be sellers. The fun part is when the record is perfect in every way and I don't buy it. Jokes on them! Go back to the meat farm and get a real job!

On a side note, I have the grocery clerk open up my avocados before I take them home. They shouldn't be trying to sell them blindly if they ain't ripe.

 

The only horror story I have is buying a NM pressing, somewhat costly (US$110) of an album and getting a record with the quite advanced hazy discolouration in both runouts of the type caused by PVC sleeve reaction. I assume this was the issue but either way it doesn't matter what caused it in the long run. I asked the seller why he didn't disclose it and he replied that the record sounded NM - no crackles, skips, or anything else in the audible spectrum. Sure, I guess he was correct. It didn't seem to affect the sound and it was only in the runouts. But obviously that's not the point. I can't resell it if I want to, and if I don't, I still have to look at it every time I put it on. He obviously just viewed record collecting in a practical, utilitarian way: "if it sounds fine, it shouldn't matter what it looks like."

 

This pseudo entrepreneur has sold over 45000 records on discogs, 99% of which were visually graded. My feedback rating is 100%. Don’t forget, those of you who make grand proclamations about not buying from sellers who visually grade- you aren’t the only person in the world looking for that record, so we’ll be just fine.

 

A thousand times this but not a single "Like". I don't care about that stuff, but when I noticed that, it made me chuckle a bit.

 

Ok, we get it, you think we're being too fussy. But with the renewed interest in vinyl and newbies jumping on the retail bandwagon, record stores and online mom and pops are becoming the used car lots of 2022. And at $20 to $200 a pop we don't think it's funny.